Moscow appears to be the city with the cheapest parking
The study included 9 cities: New York, London, Zurich, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Paris, Geneva, Boston and Stockholm. The rent was calculated as the city average rental price of 1 square foot in a one-room apartment according to The New York Times.[2] The cost of parking was calculated as the average rental price of 1 square foot of parking space among the five off-street parking lots closest to the Сity hall according to the ParkMe service.[1] The authors estimated the area of one parking space at 130 square feet (about 12 square meters).
In all cities, with the exception of New York and Hong Kong, the cost of renting an apartment was higher than the cost of parking (an average of $4,55 per square foot for a rented apartment versus $3,75 per square foot for a parking lot). In New York, parking is 26% more expensive than renting an apartment. Only in Hong Kong, prices are almost equal - this is fair according to The Micromobility Newsletter.
The authors of the study draw attention to the fact that, in accordance with their methodology, the cost of parking is “almost exactly” overestimated, since in cities from the abovementioned list you can find cheaper and even free parking spaces. However, the cost of parking almost everywhere turned out to be “unreasonably low” compared to the cost of renting an apartment.
Using the methodology of this study, we made a similar comparison for Moscow.
To calculate the cost of parking, we analyzed the subscription rates of five off-street parking lots closest to the Moscow City Hall: Central Car Park, MCD-parking, “Zvezda Arbata” parking, underground parking at Turgenevskaya Square, and the “BC Vozdvizhenka-Center” parking. The average parking price was 1237 rubles per square meter ($1,83/sq. foot) per month.
To calculate the average cost of rent, we used the CIAN real estate database, analyzing 6,9 thousand advertisements for renting one-room apartments (as of July 2019). The average rental prices in Moscow amounted to 1028 rubles per square meter ($1.52/sq. foot) per month.[3]
According to the calculation results, the cost of parking in Moscow was 20% higher than the cost of renting.
However, these figures do not reflect the real situation with parking in Moscow, since they compare indicators of different scales. Prices at several parking lots in the city center, the area of the highest demand, are compared with prices for rent throughout the city, while Moscow significantly exceeds the area of all the cities represented in the original research, and rental prices vary greatly from district to district.
To get a more objective result, we compared all offers for renting one-room apartments (6,9 thousand as of July 2019; source: CIAN) and all offers for renting parking spaces for a long term (parking in business centers and residential buildings, private parking facilities, and garages) (3,1 thousand as of July 2019, source: CIAN, Moscow Parking) in Moscow districts. Even with this method, parking prices will be overstated, since there are places in Moscow where you can park for free or at reduced rates for residents.
In all districts of Moscow, parking turned out to be cheaper than rental housing, but between the districts the values are very different. The closest values are in the South-Western Administrative District, where parking is cheaper by 26%. The most significant difference is in the Eastern Administrative District, where parking costs 70% less than renting an apartment. In this district, there are the lowest parking prices comparable to parking fee in the New Moscow.
Thus, parking prices in Moscow were underestimated: renting a meter of parking space can be 2 times cheaper than renting a meter of housing. This difference is even more significant than in Paris and San Francisco, cities with the cheapest parking compared to housing. What is more, Moscow has the most affordable housing – the cheapest parking, not only in absolute, but also in relative terms.
References:
- Find & Pay For The Perfect Spot [Electronic source]/ ParkMe Website. – 2019. Electronic data. Access mode: https://www.parkme.com/ru/
- International Rents Per Square Foot [Electronic source]/ The New York Times. – 2017. Electronic data. Access mode: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/realestate/international-rents-per-square-foot.html
- Real estate database in Moscow [Electronic source]/ CIAN Website. – 2019. Electronic data. Access mode: https://www.cian.ru
- Where parking is cheaper than rent [Electronic source]/ The Micromobility Newsletter. – 2019. Electronic data. Access mode: https://micromobility.substack.com/p/where-parking-is-cheaper-than-rent
